


Savior

by Caprichoso



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, M/M, Suicide Attempt, no happy endings here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 04:30:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caprichoso/pseuds/Caprichoso
Summary: "A shaky breath, two, and Kurapika forces himself to take in the sight before him. His long-time friend and oftentimes-lover is slumped in that rickety old wooden chair they'd bought together from the thrift shop after they'd destroyed its predecessor mid-coupling. He's wearing the same damn suit as ever-- he owns several duplicates in the same color by now, but the subtle fraying and sun-bleaching give the original away. And at his feet, throwing off an eldritch glow, is a canister displaying a pair of scarlet eyes. The last pair."Heavy angst driven by good intentions, no happy ending.





	Savior

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BugTongue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/gifts).



> After years of observing from the sidelines, I'm back into Hunter X Hunter thanks to the Leopika Discord! And this one is a doozy. Fair warning ahead of time: this one deals with heavy subject matter and does not end happy. Proceed with caution.
> 
> Thanks to @bugtongue for being a great beta and sounding board, and Aldermoth for fanning the flames.

"I need you to explain this to me, Leorio." The words come creaking out of Kurapika's mouth, out of a too-tight chest and vocal cords to match.

Leorio, for his part, gives the object between his shoes a little smile, if that pained, short-lived twisting of lips can be called such. When he meets Kurapika's gaze, his eyes are resigned. "Not much to explain, really. It's what it looks like."

"You found them," Kurapika whispers, shock and elation and so many jumbled emotions threatening to choke even that simple sentence. It's done. It's over. His clan can be at peace. Kurapika can finally...

Something fragile twists and snaps in his chest, flooding his body with a liquid chill. "Leorio, I... I don't know what to say."

Leorio is supposed to fill the silence between them with good-natured laughter, to harp on the novelty of a speechless Kurapika; he does not. Instead, he taps a thumb against his knee, waiting far too long before he manages two words: "I know."

It's a credit to their years of friendship and more-than-friendship that Kurapika catches the weight of that sentence, and it drags him nearly to the ground. Something is very, very wrong here, and none of the possibilities are anything short of catastrophic.

Forcing down the panic bubbling like acid in his throat, he takes a step closer. "What is it that you know?" When the silence grows too terrible, he takes another step. "What do you know, Leorio?"

Leorio is as expressive as Kurapika is reserved; even in his darkest moments, he can't seem to restrain the huffs and sighs that animate his entire body at once. His absolute stillness now terrifies Kurapika more than any other time he's seen this man. "I know what happens when you bury all of them."

The final covenant of Kurapika's Nen-- his most closely guarded secret, and the reason he strives to never let himself form too strong of a bond with anyone. Leorio, with his irritatingly endearing brand of bullheadedness, had entangled himself in Kurapika's very soul, but he was the sole exception; he'd always been Kurapika's weakness. And now, somehow, he knows the one truth he was never supposed to know.

"You're an emotional drunk, Pika," Leorio drawls, mercifully ripping Kurapika out of his speculation. "One time, you broke down crying and told me you were going to miss me when your clan was laid to rest. Took a little convincing to get the whole story out of you, but..." He trails off, fists clenching as he draws in a deep, shuddering breath between clenched teeth. "Dammit, Pika, why the hell do you have to die with your clan?"

"I needed to be stronger," Kurapika murmurs, feeling like a child caught in some great wrongdoing. "All my other restrictions, all my other covenants, they weren't going to be enough to defeat the Spiders. I had to not only risk my life, but pledge it as well."

Leorio blinks sunken eyes at him, back to that awful stillness that doesn't belong in his body. "Well, I couldn't let you do that. Which meant I had to make at least one pair of Kurta eyes disappear."

The world tilts beneath Kurapika's feet. Gasping, he staggers and catches himself on the bookshelf to his right. A porcelain lamp falls to shatter into a thousand pieces on the wood floor. They'd bought that lamp together, too.

Bit by bit, the realization trickles into his mind. The eyes sitting there aren't a gift from a friend; they've been a tether keeping Kurapika from bringing peace to his clan, his family, everyone he'd ever loved in the life before he became a Hunter. And the only one he's loved since is the one who's been holding that leash.

"How long?" The words are like glass ground up in bile, leaving a burning trail all the way up from his stomach to his lips. "How long have you had these?"

"Since you mentioned that informant in Leesatt who wanted to meet up and tell you how to find another seller. It was the first time I had enough information and the ability to get there before you could arrange the time off with the Nostrades. Found the guy, he passed along the owner's name..." Leorio takes a deep breath, then finally looks Kurapika in the eye, a horrible hollow stare. "And then I made sure he couldn't give you that information."

Of all the emotions Kurapika expected to find in the bitter mixture floating through his heart, the hurt and accusation and anger all swirling together, it's compassion that rises to the forefront, softening his voice. "You murdered him."

Leorio gives a single bob of his head, as though he's acknowledging something simple, but his eyes are haunted. "I did. Then stole his stuff to make it look like just another mugging. Then I went back to my hotel, threw up, drank the mini bar dry, threw up some more, kept drinking for days, even while I planned the heist. I was still hungover as hell when I stole the eyes from the guy's mansion, and all I could think about for hours after that was how glad I was I didn't have to kill anyone else to get them." He sighs, runs a hand through hair that springs back into the same spikes as always. "It's different, y'know? I've had patients die on me before, I've killed in self-defense plenty of times, but... I swore an oath as a medical professional: 'Do no harm.' And then I stabbed this guy in cold blood. At first I tried to justify it by saying I was keeping you safe, but that doesn't make it better. It was still murder."

There's an itch under Kurapika's skin-- an illogical, compulsive need to express that this, at least, he understands. The wound Leorio has left in his gut is still gushing, bleeding him out, but still he's compelled to offer up what little comfort he can. "I never wanted you to know how that difference feels," he says. It's insufficient, doesn't speak to how much he'd wanted to shelter Leorio from all the cruelties of the world, would have borne any burden so Leorio wouldn't have to feel it warp him inside... but a pithy consolation is all he can manage.

The shrug of Leorio's shoulders is almost familiar, an infinitesimal spark of rueful humor in his eye. "Well, I never wanted you to die, so, y'know."

A hundred responses in a myriad of tones rush to be voiced, jamming in Kurapika's threat and forming an awful lump. What finds its way out is soft and broken, a whimper rather than a bang. "Three years."

"What?"

Kurapika swallows, pushes more out. "I found the second-to-last pair of eyes just over three years ago. I've been alive for an extra three years because of you."

For the first time tonight, Leorio's smile is genuine. "Good."

The sight of him smiling so peacefully, lit up in the scarlet light of his betrayal, sends Kurapika hurtling into a red-eyed rage of his own. Snatching the first book he can reach from the bookcase, he hurls it at Leorio. "You _bastard_!

Leorio dodges, of course, snatching up the Kurta eyes and launching to his feet as the chair is knocked over, a second book striking at an angle that leaves only a pile of fractured sticks. "I will not apologize for saving your life!" he shoots back.

"Those eyes _are_  my life!" At this point Kurapika is screeching, his voice shrill in his own ears as he casts about for something hard and heavy. "You knew, you knew _all along_  that this was the only thing that mattered to me, and then you went and--"

"I thought _I_ mattered to you too!" Leorio's words leave a stunned silence behind, punctuated only by heavy breathing. He makes as if to set the canister down again, but then hugs it fiercely to his chest instead.

Guilt and shame pour hot-cold over the back of Kurapika's spine, soaking him in misery. "Leorio, I... you do matter to me. I lo--" The words catch on their last chance to be free, doomed to remain unspoken forever; how can he possibly say them, even in his heart, after something like this? "I have always cared very deeply for you. Too deeply."

With another sigh, Leorio ventures just a bit closer, relaxes a bit, though tension still trembles through him. "You can't care for me when you're dead, Pika."

The endearment he's only allowed from the lips of two people in his life, once so welcome coming from his lover, now sounds like a mockery. Still, his fury has deserted him for the time being, and in its place is nothing but a masochistic need for answers. "So you've had these eyes for... nearly five years now? Have they just been sitting under your bed?" The thought sends a shudder through him: an image springs to mind unbidden of the grisly trophy watching, judging Kurapika for his failure, even as he and Leorio tangled together in countless intimate moments.

"Give me some credit here," Leorio shoots back. "They normally stay in a very secure place, with every possible safeguard against theft or damage. Cost me a damn fortune just to store them, but I had to make sure they were always safe."

"And I'd never have known where they were, never would have thought to ask my own..." Kurapika trails off, his search for a word to define his and Leorio's relationship derailed by a horrible realization that hits him like a bullet to the stomach. "So the agreement we made about discussing my people's eyes-- you don't try to stop me if I don't tell you specifics about my search-- it was just a way to keep me from finding out what you'd done."

That tiny, fragile smile on Leorio's face is heartbreaking. "You know I have a hell of a time hiding things from you."

The bullet exits, leaving a ragged, messy hole. Hollow point. "You hid _this_ from me."

Leorio's eyes squeeze shut, and he lets out a pained huff through his nostrils. "Yeah, I did."

It's all Kurapika can do to remain standing, but he refuses to show weakness. He's not supposed to have to hide the extent of his hurt from Leorio, has never had to do so before... but everything has changed so suddenly, and he's fallen back on survival instincts. "I spent months in Leesatt following your trail. I managed to track down the former owner and convince him to let me join his investigation team... but it was no use. You didn't leave any evidence behind, and there were no loose ends anywhere. Every tip I've gotten since then turned out to be a hoax. You could have kept this secret forever."

Another bitter grunt comes from Leorio. "Not with it eating away at you like it has been. I've tried so hard to convince you to just let it go, but you never will, will you? Every time you ran out to risk your life chasing some other bullshit lead, I wanted to tell you not to worry, that the eyes were safe..." His voice deepens, husky with unshed tears. "And you could be safe, too. With-- with me."

Alarm bells sound in Kurapika's head, warning of something terrible approaching; after years of conditioning, his senses treat any impending surprise as a threat. It's served him well, but now, with his emotions in such disarray, he wishes he could tell if he's supposed to be excited or terrified by what's to come.

Leorio looks down at the canister in his arms as if surprised to see it there; he gingerly kneels to place it on the ground, then remains kneeling as he fishes in his jacket pocket. "Shit, I'm no good at this kind of thing. This might be the worst way to do this, but I can't think of a right way." Trembling fingers produce a small box, and after a brief moment of fumbling, it opens to reveal a metallic object.

A ring.

Clearing his throat, Leorio looks up into Kurapika's eyes. "Look, I don't know why I thought showing you this was a good idea. I thought... maybe... I guess I hoped you'd understand. I did this all because I love you, Pika. I'm in love with you, and I want to have a life with you, but that means that you have to _be alive_ in the first place. And even if you don't want to be with me, I promise with everything I've got that I will keep the eyes safe for you, if you just promise to live."

The room is silent, but a dull rushing sound is growing ever louder in Kurapika's ears, drowning out even his hammering heart. He opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is the cry of a wounded animal. He blinks, and his pistol is in his hand and pointed at the kneeling Leorio, who has dropped the ring box and is clutching the scarlet eyes again, shouting something that Kurapika can't hear over the howling of his own blood. Crawling his way back from the brink of insanity, he centers himself enough to process Leorio's words.

"...can hate me, you can never speak to me again, you can even kill me, but I am _begging_  you, Pika, let these eyes stay locked away, and live your life."

"I _should_ kill you, you fucking heartless bastard," Kurapika snarls. There's saltwater blurring his vision, scarlet light refracting through it and practically blinding him, but he keeps the gun pointed at Leorio.

There's a slight movement out beyond the tears, and it's only Kurapika's intimate knowledge of Leorio's habits that allows him to interpret the shrug. "That's okay. I understand."

The hand holding the gun shakes violently then lowers, the weight of years of vengeance dragging it down. Kurapika lets out a breath that's closer to a sob, but doesn't succumb to the urge to break down crying. There is only one solution he can see, and a limited window to accomplish it before he loses his nerve. Gathering his resolve, he presses the barrel of the gun to his temple as he looks Leorio in the eye. "Bury them for me."

Outdoors, a gunshot is painfully loud without hearing protection; inside Leorio's tiny apartment, it sounds like the end of the world. As an awful ringing rushes in to fill the void left by the explosion, though, it occurs to Kurapika that he shouldn't be hearing anything. There's a strange tugging sensation at his now-limp hand; he looks over just in time to see Leorio's arm retreat back into the portal on the wall, then turns to watch as the portal in the floor dissipates and Leorio drops the hot gun, shaking his hand and uttering curses Kurapika can't hear over the ringing.

"You won't even let me die." Kurapika's own words sound strange and muffled, vibrating in his skull; he can't tell if they reach Leorio, so he shouts instead. "Why won't you just let me die?"

There are tears streaming down Leorio's face, but he meets Kurapika's eyes even as he mumbles a litany that becomes clearer with each repetition. "I can't. I love you. I'm sorry."

Rage ignites Kurapika's blood, mixing with the black tar of self-loathing that had paralyzed him just seconds before and providing one final way out-- he still has one weapon Leorio can’t take away, and the results are guaranteed.

Pointing his finger at Leorio, Kurapika summons his Nen and calls forth the means of his own demise. "Chain Jail!"

The conjured links coil around Leorio, binding him from neck to knee, the stolen eyes glowing red between the gaps in the chains. As they tighten and his body is forced into Zetsu, Leorio whimpers, turning away from what is to follow.

Kurapika closes his eyes, wishing his last moment could have been something different, something more peaceful than suicide after his lover's betrayal. Taking a deep breath, he waits for the chain imbedded in his heart to exact its punishment...

...and opens his eyes to find Leorio still bound, still blocked from his Nen, with no adverse effect on Kurapika.

As the implications hit home, Kurapika staggers forward before catching himself on wobbly legs. Hysterical, shrieking laughter mixed with weeping claws its way from his throat, and he claps his free hand to his mouth in a vain attempt to stop it. Seconds or minutes later, he drops to elbows and knees, growling and screaming his agony into the floorboards.

"The covenant," he wheezes, not bothering to clear his airways of the tears and mucus that block them. "I never thought..." He lets out another growl, preparing himself to force the words out to make them real, to share the pain of this revelation with the one responsible for it. "Leorio, I vowed never to use this chain on anyone except those who stole my clan from me. I never thought... never once _imagined_... that that would apply to anyone but the Spiders."

Kurapika has no idea how long he lies there weeping, Leorio still bound and helpless to do anything but cry with him. When the final tears have been wiped away and his entire body is hollowed out, he stands and makes his way to the kitchen counter. Taking the sticky notepad close at hand and fishing out a pen from the Whale Island souvenir coffee cup that Gon had given Leorio years ago, Kurapika jots down a series of coordinates from memory. He rips the paper off and strides over to where Leorio still kneels.

"Look at me," he commands, and is perversely satisfied when Leorio complies instantly. Summoning his Judgment Chain, he lets it hover between them for a moment, then stabs it into his own chest.

"After I leave this room, never again will I voluntarily have any form of contact with you for the rest of my life. If I seek you out, or if you seek me out and I respond, I will die. Do you understand the terms of the vow I have placed upon myself, Leorio?"

A broken sob is the first thing out of Leorio's mouth, but to his credit, he regains control of his breathing despite the tears streaming down his cheeks. "I understand," he whispers, then succumbs to another round of sobs wracking his body.

Kurapika allows his enemy a moment, a bit of mercy in thanks for the happy memories they made together, then drops the paper at his knees. "If you ever did truly love me, you will bury the eyes here."

Without waiting for a response, before his traitorous heart can rebel against doing what is necessary, before his mind can clamor that he can still release himself from the vow if he does so before leaving this room, Kurapika turns. He walks toward the door, his chains dissipating as he opens it and walks out into a familiar hallway for the last time.

 


End file.
